Fallen Heros

Maybe the great Gen X test of courage passed us by when the firefighters raced up the stairways of the World Trade Center, or maybe the real test is right around the corner. Either way, the danger is that our long-held generational default positionironic detachmenthas locked us in a sort of limbo, and that we’ll wind up known for doing nothing at all. Which is why, when the “Get Your War On” outbursts were collected in a couple of books, Rees decided to contribute all of the profits to a charity that clears land mines in Afghanistan. “That was a way for me to compensate for the helplessness I felt,” he says. “I felt like, The comic isn’t enough. It’s just me kind of ranting.” And as Nomad would be the first to tell you, ranting only gets you so far.